Henry V - Saint Crispin's Day Speech
The Saint Crispin's Day Speech scene from Kenneth Branagh's masterpiece film of the Shakespeare classic Henry V (1989). One of the most impressive speeches in history. Absolutely brilliant!
Although Shakespeare penned this work nearly two hundred years after the Battle of Agincourt (1415), it remains the finest dramatic interpretation of what courage and leadership meant to the hearty men of the Middle Ages.
Prior to the famous Battle, Henry V had led his English footmen across Northwestern France, seizing Calais and other cities in an attempt to win back holds in France that had once been in English possession and to claim the French crown through the time-honored Salic Law.
The French, aware of Henry's troops weakening condition because of their distance from England and the attacks of dysentery that had plagued the dwindling band, moved between King Henry and Calais, the port he needed to reach in order to return to England. The troops followed Henry's band along the rivers, preventing their crossing and daring them to a battle they thought they could not win.
The English knights fought on foot after the manner devised by Edward III. Archers were to be used in support, the English and Welsh longbows having established their credentials both at Crecy (1347) and at Poitiers (1356). But here the French seemed to have sufficient numbers to deal with even this threat, and they refused to allow Henry pass, angered by the English seizure of the cities.
Morale in the English line as they looked upon the overwhelming force of heavily armored, highly skilled French knights must have been extremely low. King Henry, rising to the occasion, spoke words of encouragement that rallied the English troops and carried them to a victory. As a result of the victory the French Princess Catherine was betrothed to Henry V, and France and England were at peace for the remainder of Henry's short life. He perished of dysentery in 1422, but was survived by his son (Henry VI) and was buried at Westminster Abbey, close to the shrine of the great Catholic King Saint Edward the Confessor.
Although the speech below is a work of fiction, it is evocative of the epic spirit with which King Henry --and all Catholic medieval kings-- ruled through the strength of their deep Christian convictions and by sheer force of their personality.
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